This weekend I attended WisCon. I’ve been hearing about it for years, ever since I first went to Alpha when I was 18, but being a student has meant being more or less perpetually short on time and money. I just can’t afford to travel to conventions and pay for the hotel in addition to membership and feeding myself. However, this year, I was thrilled to realize that hey, WisCon is in Madison, and so am I! Another writer friend came up to stay with me for the con (Lauren, who has been blogging about the con herself), thus giving me the courage to actually go.

I’m horrendously shy, and tossing me into a situation where there are hundreds of people I don’t know and none I do is something that has never worked out well in the past. I try to go into any social situation armored with a friend. This time, for once in my life, friend armor was unnecessary. It was welcome, and there were certainly times when Lauren and I found ourselves on our own, but I would have been perfectly comfortable at this con interacting only with people I met at the con.

First up on Friday morning at the obscene hour of 9:00 was the writing workshop. I was incredibly impressed with the quality of my fellow writers’ stories, and the pro writer who headed our group, Vylar Kaftan, critiqued in a way that’s more or less perfect for me–bluntly and practically. I came away knowing exactly what needs to be done to my story in order to make it the story it should be, which is all you can ever ask for from a workshop. Something I especially admired about the WisCon workshop is that they scheduled mingling time for after the workshop was over. We headed over to a nearby coffee shop and proceeded to get to know one another personally in addition to through our writing. Theodora Goss made an appearance, and I shared with her the fact that she was my favorite Alpha instructor way back when, and we enthused about Alpha for a bit. And my WisCon social circle ballooned from there, aided also by the First WisCon Dinner specifically meant to introduce newcomers to other newcomers at the con.

I bumped into Cassie (a.k.a. Catherine) Krahe, who I’d met at Alpha, and she introduced me to Rachel Swirsky, who in turn introduced me to Ann Leckie, and suddenly I know two short fiction editors and writers who I have admired for years. Just like that, because WisCon is that kind of convention.

I was able to introduce myself to Sean Wallace, who has published my two stories at Fantasy Magazine (though I managed to continuously miss editor and writer extraordinaire Cat Rambo, which disappoints me!), and chat about writing for a while before being interrupted by author Sarah Monette, at whom I couldn’t resist briefly fangirling (if you haven’t read her Doctrine of Labyrinths series, do so at once!).

All that, and I haven’t even mentioned any of the amazing programming. Since I feel that this post has already gotten a little out of hand, I won’t go through everything, but two of my favorite events occurred late in the evenings, and I’m so glad I fought off con exhaustion and stuck around for them. The first was the Lightspeed Magazine launch on Saturday, where Vylar Kaftan, Alice Sola Kim, Cat Rambo, and Genevieve Valentine read stories that will be appearing in said magazine. All four stories were great, though my particular favorite, the one I couldn’t help but gush about to my friends, was Alice Sola Kim’s story about a man who has the misfortune of time traveling every time he sleeps, tied to his descendants. It was funny and thoughtful and sad. Sadly, I cannot for the life of me recall the title. Look for it in Lightspeed!

The second event was a workshop run by Cecilia Tan that tackled the question, “How do you get around the double-edged sword of needing to present realistically diverse stories and characters without being accused of appropriation?” The workshop was Sunday evening, and this one even started half an hour late because the guest of honor speeches and award ceremonies went well over time. I think it’s probably safe to say that the majority of the audience was exhausted. But it was a really great workshop: lively, fun, and useful, and I feel more secure about writing characters who aren’t young, white, able females like myself.

There are so many marvelous things that happened at WisCon that I’m not even mentioning here, because mentioning everything awesome about this con would take forever. Suffice to say that I sincerely doubt that any other con I ever attend will be able to compare to WisCon, and I anticipate returning year after year after year.

Before I launch into some serious hilarity, a little background information: I work part time at the Wisconsin Historical Society, specifically in Wisconsin Government Publications. My job involves going through a ton of old boxes of government documents that have never been added to the library, and every once in a while I find something amusing, like the 1950s booklet “Your Job in the Pea Canning Industry,” or the 1960s “Homemaker’s Kit” which included such scintillating reading material as “Be a Better Buyer of Bleaches.” Yesterday, a document emerged (though, alas, I was not the one to discover it) that puts all the other hilarious documents to shame.

It was a single typed sheet of crumbling paper. It wasn’t dated, but judging by the type of paper and the appearance of the type, I’d date it in the 1930s or 1940s. It purports to be “extracts taken from letters written to the Pension Bureau in connection with applications.” So without further delay, I give you the extracts (typos and all):

I cannot get sick pay. I have six children. Can you tell why this is so.

This is my eight child. What are you going to do about it.

Mrs. Brown has had no clothes for years and has been regularly visited by the clergy.

I am glad to say that my husband, who has been reported missing, is now deceased.

Sir: I am forwarding my marriage certificate and my two children, one of which is a mistake as you will see,

Unless I get my husbands money, I will be forced to live an immortal life.

I am writing to say that my baby was born two years old. When do I get my money.

Please find out for certain if my husband is dead, as the man I am now living with wont eat or do anything unless he knows for certain.

I am very much annoyed to find that have branded my son as an illiterate. It is a dirty lie, as I married his father a week before he was born.

My son has been put in charge of a spitoon in the army, so now I get more money.

In answer to your letter, I have given birth to a boy weighing ten pounds. I hope this is satisfactory.

You have changed my little boy to a girl, will it make any difference.

Please send my money at once as I need it badly. I have fallen into errors with the landlady.

I have no children as yet. My husband is a truck driver and works day and nights.

In accordance with your instructions, I have given birth to twins in the enclosed envelope.

I want my money as quickly as you can send it. I have been in bed with a Doctor for two weeks and he does not seem to be doing me much good. If things don’t improve, I will have to send for another Doctor.

I wonder how many other government offices have collected letter snippets like these over the years? This can hardly be an isolated case.

The last one is my favorite–the poor doctor! What’s yours?

I’m gearing up for a summer full of reading. Today was my first post-school year trip to the public library. Here’s what I picked up:

And then there’s these too…

All the books standing in this picture are ones I acquired at Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s sales and haven’t gotten around to reading yet.

Any bets on how long it takes me to get through these? Recommendations on where to start?

I’ve neglected this blog a lot longer than I intended. Sorry about that. I could plead grad school finals, but really, my lack of posts is mostly due to pure laziness.

As of Monday, my first year of grad school will be done, and a lovely summer of part-time work at the Historical Society and hopefully a lot of writing and revising will commence. The next month is going to be incredibly busy in a fun way–I have two upcoming visits from college friends, one wedding of a grad school friend, my first high school reunion (only five years, but it seems longer most days), and WisCon.

I’m really, really excited about WisCon–I haven’t had much of an opportunity to attend cons, and I’ve heard amazing things about WisCon. How lucky that I ended up in Madison for grad school, so I can afford to go (hotel and travel costs being the primary reason I don’t go to most cons). I’m hoping for the opportunity to introduce myself to some of my favorite writers and the folks from Fantasy Magazine who’ve been kind enough to publish a couple of my stories, but I’m really quite shy and am especially horrible at introductions and small talk with strangers. So if you happen to see me, feel free to introduce yourself–I’d really love to meet people, I’m just terrible at taking the initiative in social situations.

I’m doing the writing workshop for attendees of the con, and I’m bizarrely nervous about it. It’s not like I haven’t done a million (well, okay, more like a couple dozen) critique groups before. I suppose it doesn’t help that I’m really unsure about the merit of my story–I cranked it out just before the workshop deadline, and really wish I’d gotten a chance to do an extensive edit before anyone else saw it. Oh well.

Hopefully this is the first post of many to come in the near future. If my next post goes as planned, I’ll be discussing several books I’ve read recently and really loved. While I’m on the topic of books, go check me out on Goodreads! I just opened my account today, and spent the better part of the afternoon obsessively rating books.